Feng Xue ultimately didn't ask about the woman who was taken away. Firstly, he had disguised his words to suggest that he had arrived after the fact and had no opportunity to meet the woman. Secondly, he was not clear on how many secrets were involved.
After all, he couldn't completely trust Old Li. Although he was labeled as a Newbie Guide, who knows if he also concealed an occupation as a Newbie Killer?
Moreover, when he asked about the phantom items, Old Li had visibly hesitated, which meant that he wasn't someone who would inform a newbie about everything. And given the Manager gang's attitude towards that woman, it was probably not knowledge befitting a newbie.
On the way home, Feng Xue exchanged 900 Tower Coins for bricks and ate while he returned to his house. Having no strict need for sleep anymore, he couldn't manage to doze off and decided to examine the functions of the four apps instead.
The "Contacts" feature wasn't much to speak of; it combined functions like WeChat, phone, and contacts list. It allowed for voice and video communication and, of course, text messages. However, Feng Xue's contact list currently only contained Old Li.
As for the "Account" area, as the name implies, it was a salary account, capable of receiving wages distributed by Infinite City. It also enabled inserting Tower Coins into the account anytime. Although finding it odd to stuff coins directly into a mobile phone, considering this was a data-like world, Feng Xue didn't find it too hard to accept.
The "Browser," as previously mentioned, was an electronic book software used for querying knowledge attached to tags. However, because the Corpse Collector tag contained knowledge that was too mixed and varied, Feng Xue was somewhat unsure where to start.
But what really surprised Feng Xue was the "Map" feature.
Following his old habits from his previous life of zooming in on maps, Feng Xue suddenly discovered that this map feature was not limited to this landfill area. After continually shrinking the map further and further, he finally saw the true appearance of the so-called Infinite City world.
At first glance, this massive map depicted a huge city built on a solitary island, the whole island so round it seemed drawn with a compass, which made one ponder whether there was some kind of national territory Refining array. And by the scale, Feng Xue realized that this so-called "solitary island" likely had a real area larger than Australia.
The continent featured mountains, lakes, canyons, and basins—almost every terrain Feng Xue could think of was represented. At the heart of this continent was a massive cluster of buildings nearly the size of a province.
This cluster of buildings could generally be seen as a multi-tiered concentric circle. At the heart was a skyscraper labeled "Tower of Babylon" on the map, surrounded by an area marked as "Residential District."
The Residential District, which Feng Xue once heard about from Old Li, was about the size of the landfill area he currently resided in—a single urban district. Viewing the map, one could see that its layout was almost no different from a modern urban district in reality, with hospitals, schools, banks, libraries, restaurants, karaoke bars, bath centers, and naturally, plenty of residential blocks. If simply looking at the map, Feng Xue would think it a completely ordinary modern urban area.
In the four cardinal directions of this area called the Residential District, there was a massive garbage dump each. How massive? If the Residential District was the size of one urban district, then these four garbage dumps together formed the entire city surrounding this urban district. For instance, if the Residential District were the Weiyang District, then including the surrounding four garbage dumps, it would comprise the entirety of West Capital.
Along these four garbage dumps, roads could be observed extending outward in all directions, the roads splitting into numerous branches, and at the end of each branch was a landfill area centered around the garbage dumps.
These large and small landfill areas, interconnected by a web-like network of roads, together formed a massive whole, and the landfill area where Feng Xue was located was just one inconspicuous part of these thousands of landfill areas.
At the outermost periphery of this cluster of buildings, one could also see roads gradually extending outward, and several isolated garbage dumps without tall walls yet constructed.
Observing this map, some of the things Old Li had previously mentioned slowly became clear; the current situation of Infinite City was also gradually unfolding to him.
As depicted on the map, the Manager gang's blockade of the paths wasn't very strict, because if one were to leave the house from the direction of East City or North City and walk for about two kilometers, they could bypass the Manager gang's blockade and enter the passages.
However, considering the worst-case scenario—where all landfill area Managers reach a consensus and jointly block the passages—it was also possible to transit between different landfill areas to reach the Residential District.
The landfill area where Feng Xue resided was among those closer to the Residential District. Using the map's built-in distance-measuring software, Feng Xue learned that the direct distance here from the Residential District was not even a hundred kilometers.
The only problem was the ominous signs in the wilderness.
"Perhaps such loopholes are intentionally left by the gang, because there are always some extraordinarily talented individuals who are difficult to restrain. Instead of stopping them from pursuing their freedom, it's better to leave them a way out."
Muttering to himself, Feng Xue closed the map, but his mind couldn't help but recall the combat during the day.
That Manager held numerous combat-related tags. Even without accounting for that phantom Great Sword, his own strength and speed were beyond Feng Xue's reach, and the Suture monster was even more terrifying. At least faced with the Manager, Feng Xue could try throwing a Suffocation Blade, but against the Suture, running was his only option.
After all, his Suffocation Blade wasn't like in games, where it could decrease the speed of robots, undead, or even elemental creatures through suffocation. His ability literally just caused suffocation, and a Suture monster wouldn't be affected by suffocation at all.
Yet, regrettably, Feng Xue, as a Corpse Collector, was likely to face enemies that were mostly Suture monsters, the type of undead that ignored a suffocation debuff.
"I must expand my variety of phantom items." Feng Xue pressed his brow and made a short-term plan for his future—
Collect more Corpses, accumulate as many elements and Tower Coins as possible, then gather a batch of base materials suitable for refining phantom items on the garbage day.
And during this time without work…
Feng Xue silently opened the browser, opting to skip over professional knowledge about dissection and corpse handling, and started learning how to distinguish corpse-type omens.
"The last time I studied this hard was in my senior year of high school…"